Facebook stats shine light on election issues that matter most to Irish people

Newly released stats for the social network show that health, the economy and infrastructure have been the most discussed election issues in 24 of the 26 counties over the past three months.

Fine Gael were the most talked about political party in all but two counties.

Facebook has 2.5 million Irish users so this data will be of interest to political candidates, parties and spin doctors alike. The data shows little regional variation with most of the same topics being discussed in every county.

The timeframe surveyed was from 1 November 2015 to 5th February with Facebook using keywords and hashtags to monitor interactions around the topic of the election to include relevant “Likes” “Shares” and “Comments”. While the data cannot be taken as an opinion poll it does give an indication about what topics some of the electorate are discussing.

In Dublin crime and corruption featured in the top five most talked about election issues, with Fine Gael the most discussed party ahead of Labour in second place in the county.